I don’t think umpires would feel undermined by the use of technology, but would rather just see it as an extra resource as the officials do in rugby and tennis. It’s clear to me that England hid behind this reason for refusing referrals in the hope of getting ‘home advantage’ from the umpires; Strauss,, Collingwood (Lord’s) and Cook (Headingley) will suggest that it hsn’t worked out that way!

Nick is right - a referral system would work with current technology and in a year or two there would be no fuss at all.

What seems nuts is that it *is* currently used to see if the fielder took a low catch, despite the fact that those are often difficult to judge from the replays, but it isn’t used for things which the TV coverage seems to show reliably, like checking if the ball pitched outside leg for LBW decisions.

I would love to have seen an appeal system for this series. Yeah, sure, occasionally you’ll get decisions which all the TV replays leave ambiguous, and that’s frustrating, but I can’t see it’s any worse than having decisions allowed to stand when every person watching on TV knows that they’re wrong.

The tennis is a great example. Hawkeye isn’t God, it doesn’t know exactly where the ball is at all times — it’s a best guess based on available footage and historical statistics — but it acts like it’s fact. It’s happy to say the ball was in or out by a fraction of a millimeter and people are happy to accept it as fact. Is it always right? No. Does anyone care? No.

I don’t think we need to wait 10 years for more accurate technology, just a year or two for more convincing tech. If both these decisions were displayed on a big screen in 3D with a ball-trail that either bounced or didn’t there’d by no debate about the decision. Be it right or wrong.

Notice that we never see closeup slo-mo replays of line calls at the tennis?

It’s a bit of a shock selection, I admit, but let’s see what Pattinson can do before we judge him.

We also have to live with the fact that modern grounds show replays on their big screens - ostensibly for the benefit of the crowd, but essentially because there’s no reason not to - and that there’s bound to be a reaction from those watching it.

So today we had two instances of ‘catches’ being referred ‘upstairs’. Neither were, officially, out. Who cares what the decision was? Whatever the decision for each, at least it was given to someone with a better point of view to decide. And, probably the right decision was made for each.

Here’s the point. The decision to give Cook out was wrong. So was Collingwood’s decision in the first test. As was Strauss’s. A decision upstairs would have resulted in a better verdict for each - ie, that they weren’t the right ones. Forget that in the past they didn’t have the benefit of TV - back then, top edges never used to go for 6, either.

The referral system should work. County cricket captains messed it up last summer, badly and unforgivably. It CAN work. See tennis. See ‘Hot Spot’ on Sky. Rubbish when it first started; when they learnt how to implement it properly, it became useful.

It can work as it does in tennis. Captains just need to work out when’s a good time. As a captain, surely that’s as important as any other decision to make?

Oh bum. Cook out to a bit of a dodgy decision in the 12th.

Sure, Broad’s figures aren’t great yet but he is only 22 - and I think he should be seen as an all-rounder.

I’d bat him at 6, if only because he’s a southpaw, with Ambrose at 7 and Freddie at 8.

This of course supposes that we don’t at some point encounter a spinners’ wicket - but just supposing we did, who should be the second twirler?

Makes my job so much easier!

So I sort of feel I *should* be defending it as a great example of cricket at it best, but actually, no, it was dull beyond belief. I always think that cricket is only really engaging when it looks like a wicket might fall at any moment. Even when the batsmen are scoring quite quickly, if they don’t look like getting out then it’s fairly dull. On the other hand, low-scoring defensive batting can be really exciting on a difficult wicket when the ball keeps flying past the edge. But the combination of low scoring and not a sniff of a wicket: that is truly deeply boring.

So I can admire the Saffie batting in the abstract, but I hope I don’t have to watch anything like it again any time soon.

The whole team seems to get on together and progress is definitely upward. I fear for the impact on morale that Freddy’s over-sized ego and propensity for spending excessive time brown-nosing in the opposition’s dressing room will have.

Colly is currently 5mph on average slower than Kallis and this is true across the board of all our attack. If Colly was scoring runs I’d argue that he can be a fourth seamer, but right now it’s hard to put forward with conviction. We’re also too reliant on swing with both Anderson and Sid requiring the right conditions to look potent.

Broad is a prospect, but still needs to do a bit more with the ball at test level (18 wickets at 45 apiece currently) before he can be considered a genuine #3 test bowler. That said his batting helps balance the team and with his height he has the potential to offer more.

Personally I’d like to see an attack of Flintoff, Anderson, Jones, Broad and Monty. But for that to happen, the contributions from Fred’s batting and whoever is keeping need to improve. I’d also have a few concerns about how much control the seamers would offer once Fred’s spells are over - both Anderson and Jones could improve in this regard.

Not an easy lark this selecting!

I’m glad that we can go back to the proper cricket, and enjoy the contest. So, yes, we like 20Twenty, yes, play it at the weekend, yes, scrap the 40 over game, but please, not too much 20Twenty. Test cricket is so special and is the ultimate form of the game.

I’m just saying.

Maybe Lords should go back to uncovered wickets. Smith and McKenzie deserve credit for their defiant batting. Something’s wrong, though, when a good bowling attack can only take one wicket in a whole day’s play.

After reading through countless of these comments banging on about how twenty-20 is killing the game and how tests are superior and where the future of cricket lies and so on and on and on, ive realised t20 has done more for the marketability of tests than anything else in the last ten years.

Everyone has to admit that the popularity of cricket, all forms of it has been showing a consistent downward trend but since the whole IPL thing, more people are talking about tests and i dont know if its true everywhere but personally ive noticed more people have started watching tests and following all forms of the game after twenty20. bet there were people who just maybe went on the interweb to look for t20 news and stumbled upon cricinfo (which is basically the only place you can go, so think its safe to assume everyone did) and they read about the tests and the enthusiasm shown for test cricket and read these hundreds of articles banging on about how t20 is killing the game and then decided to watch a test.

i think its harsh to assume that just because someone has started there cricket spectating through t20s they wont eventually become test fanatics. i have friends who played football and kept going on about how they thought cricket was as boring as golf and too complicated and
any game that lasts for 5 days is not worth watching and then found t20s appealing. and a few weeks later i would meet them and they knew exactly what the score for the eng v nz test was. maybe rare but entirely possible.

i think the whole t20 will make more fans of test cricket instead of stealing viewership away from them. The only thing i would be scared of is if there start to be loads of fixtures all at the same time and viewers are asked to decide between tests and t20s, then we’ll have to start thinking and as we know thatll mean more trips to dubai or lords or wherever these buggers decide to meet next and spend another 2 weeks thinking of how to alienate each other and achieving absolute nothing inbetween publishing press releases that are completely irrelevant.

i say commentators, cricketers, bloggers, journalists, keep writing about how tests are better than t20s, dont think well lose t20 viewers we can only gain test viewers, and isnt that what we all want

and besides keeping track of scores every hour is sufficient to act like youre a great cricket fan.

It was amazing that both captains misread the conditions so drastically - it has been a good batting wicket for some time AND the sun was shining on day one.

Headingly has produced some poor toss decisions and both skippers might be happy to lose it on Friday.

Draws are not always exciting and some paragon of traditional Test play. Sometimes they’re just plain boring.

The Lord’s ground-staff need to get their act together, or letting them have two Tests a year will start to seem ridiculous.

The Lords pitch has become too batsman friendly. In these days of grounds bidding for tests, they need to eek out as much cricket as possible to guarantee a fair return financially. This is not in test cricket’s best interests.

Most importantly, we want an exciting test series. If we can get a couple of results in the series, there is no nreal problem with a draw at Lords. SA went in as favourites, then England dominated for 3 days followed by stubborn resistance by the Springboks. We know more about the sides now, and are set for a cracking series.

Draw’s are a fundamental part of cricket. Neither side was able to bowl the opposition out twice. The England attack is fairly similar. An England attack of Sidebottom, Flintoff, Jones, Panesar and Rashid would surely have performed better?

ss

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